


Petrichor

by spoorks



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Medieval AU!, This is going to be long, Trans Michael Mell, and medieval, because why not, how are you supposed to tag here, if my uncommitted ass can keep updating it, it's pretty similar to the musical itself but gayer, probably, the squip is a fairy, with magic n shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-15 04:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11222910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoorks/pseuds/spoorks
Summary: In which:Jeremy wants to be cooler. And have a better job. And a girlfriend. And social skills.And like the desperate dumbass he is, he makes a deal with a fairy who's also a manipulative dick.Naturally, things go downhill from there.or: bmc but it's magic and castle knights and shit(largely inspired by a friend's au and fic that isn't up yet so i can't take credit for the idea)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> bear with me here ok it's just a prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it really is more of a prologue but i guess prologues aren't really a thing here

As the night draws to a close, the clouds above the sea sink closer to the water. The setting sun casts a blinding reflection across the roiling waves, and one by one, the candles in the castle windows flicker on, glinting and guttering in the failing light. The palace sits on a rugged cliff over the ocean, a shining silver giant in the gloom, and in its shadow lies the village, grimy and wet and caked in mud.  
Huddled around the base of the castle like toadstools to the base of a tree are the manor houses, sporting peaked roofs and glass windows and turrets mimicking those of the palace above. The nobles inside those houses sit at grand dining tables beneath high roofs, well-lit and brimming with merry guests. They fall asleep each night amid the soft buzz of conversation and wine, full, sleepy, and content.  
In stark contrast to the manor houses are the poorer villagers. Their dim, two-room hovels spread over most of the lower land like squat, dusty rocks. Their walls are faded terracotta, and their window panes are scratched and cracked. Instead of grand velvet drapes and mink furs, the fabrics of the village homes are cheap and worn out, and their furniture is splintered and shabby.  
In one such cottage, two little boys, aged maybe seven or eight, sit beside a sputtering fire, sharing a meal and trading stories while an older man lies spread-eagle on the only mattress. They’re wrapped in ratty pelts and thin blankets, huddled together for warmth, waiting with wide eyes for the mother to come home. Outside, the wind howls, shaking dust down from the rafters, and they sip thin chicken broth from wooden bowls, eyes bright and cheeks red from the chill.  
“Someday, I’m going to be a prince,” the first boy says. “Prince Jeremy! I can be rich.”  
“You’re not royalty,” the second points out. “How are you gonna be a prince?”  
Jeremy considers for a moment. “I’ll marry into it,” he decides.  
The other boy snorts. “You can marry me,” he says. “Then, you can be a lord. But royalty marries royalty. And you’re not royalty.”  
“You won’t be lord, though,” Jeremy says. “You’re just Michael. Your sister is heir. Ha!” He pokes his friend.  
“That’s not how it works. And anyways, I’ll be a knight!” Michael declares. “A knight of the guard!”  
“Sure, Sir Michael,” the first boy says.  
“I’ll hunt fairies! And slay dragons!” Michael bounces up and down. “And I’ll save princes from towers!”  
“My dad used to say that if you go out right before the sunset, you can see a fairy,” Jeremy says.  
Michael giggles. “Jeremy, that’s stupid.” He pokes Jeremy, who shrieks and pokes him back. “Fairies don’t exist.”  
“You just said they do!” Jeremy shoots back.  
“Well, now I’m saying they don’t!” Michael crosses his arms.  
“Anyways, you can’t prove it,” Jeremy says, a triumphant grin spreading across his face.  
“Can, too!”  
“Can’t!”  
“Can!”  
“Fine, then,” Jeremy says. “Prove it.”  
“Fine.” Michael stands up and grabs his red wool cloak from where it lies on the ground. He clutches it to his chest with one hand and pulls Jeremy to his feet with the other. “I will.”  
The boys burst out of the cottage, onto the edge of the cliff, dashing through the ice plants and dandelions like a pair of wild beasts. Wind tousles their hair and stings their face, and the salty air is damp with fog.  
Their boundary is the crumbling stone bench that slouches under the weight of the greenery like a old, tired man. It’s a sad bench, and it’s a lonely bench.  
“It’s a relic,” Jeremy’s mother had said, during one of her rare sober days. “Don’t sit on it. And don’t go past it, either.”  
Michael and Jeremy sit on the bench now, facing the sunset. Michael slings the cloak around their shoulders, and they sit huddled beneath it, melting into what little warmth it provides. Jeremy leans his curly head on Michael’s shoulder, and Michael leans his head on top of Jeremy’s. They stay that way as the sun makes its way below the horizon.  
Jeremy's eyes wander to the woods on the beach. The darkness between the trees is solid. It’s a sucking, eating blackness. It looks more like a wall than empty space, and Jeremy shivers against Michael. He feels Michael’s arm around his shoulders and sighs.  
And freezes. Something glimmers at the edge of the blackness, shimmering blue-green and purple. The sun finally falls into the sea, and then the shimmer is gone.  
“I saw something, Michael,” Jeremy says. “I swear!”  
“Where?” Michael asks. “I don’t see anything.”  
“It’s gone now,” Jeremy says. “But it was there.”  
“I don’t believe you,” Michael says. “Liar.”  
“You’re the liar!” Jeremy squeals.  
“About what?”  
Jeremy stands up and grabs Michael’s hand. “It’s cold,” he says.  
“My dad wants me to be at home by dark,” Michael says, frowning. “But it’s lonely.”  
“I want to come,” Jeremy says. “My dad is sleeping and my mom isn’t home until late.”  
Jeremy’s dad was always sleeping, and his mom was never home unless it was late.  
Michael smiles. The two boys head up the dusty path, hand in hand, as the last dredges of light slowly fade from the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremy's life Sucks™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's long I'm sorry really this is just scene-setting and all the plot starts next chapter so bear with me a little bit longer

Jeremy yawned and stretched, squinting against the early morning sun. He blinked against the light as his eyes adjusted and slowly stood up, wincing as a book clattered to the floor. A blackened log sat nestled in the fireplace beside the charred leftovers of last night’s dinner, and his father lay passed out on their single threadbare mattress. Jeremy flinched as his father rolled over and ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to make himself presentable.  
Jeremy bent down and picked up his jacket from where it lay in the dirt and dusted it off. He checked it for new holes, then slung it over his shoulders. He slipped an apple in his bag before shoving the door open and stepping out into the chilly morning air.  
Like every morning beside the ocean, fog hung thick in the air. Jeremy inhaled, closing his eyes and tilting his head back, soaking up the crisp coolness of the early morning seaside. Some people hated the unruly coastal weather, but Jeremy loved the fog and the storms. He’d been raised under storms.  
He stood next to the crumbling bench at the edge of the cliff, watching the roiling waves tumble and crash against one another. He looked at the sea for a moment, and then turned his head to the forest on the beach, as he did every morning. He wasn’t really searching for fairies anymore, as he had when he was younger; it was just part of his routine. Wake up. Dress. Watch the sea, look at the woods, walk to work.  
Ice plants crunched beneath his boots as he turned from the cliffside and started to head up the muddy path. Four years ago, his routine had been a little different. Before his mother left, he had woken up, gotten dressed, and there might have been breakfast waiting for him on the table. His mother would be nursing a murderous hangover, and Jeremy would be nursing new bruises. His father would be frowning, silent, and he’d give Jeremy a quick hug before heading out for the day.  
Jeremy wasn’t sure if he missed the old routine. Or his mother.  
He dodged a horde of screaming children and ducked around a pair of milk cows before running headfirst into something hard.  
“Ow!”  
Michael stepped back, chuckling. “Sorry, Jeremy.”  
Jeremy rapped his knuckles against Michael’s chain mail. “This shit hurts, man.”  
Michael shrugged apologetically. “It didn’t run into you.”  
“Point.” They started walking again, up the road and towards the castle.  
Over their heads, the fog gathered thicker. A lone seagull flew by overhead, its shrill cries nearly lost in the endless grey.  
Michael broke the silence. “How’s your dad doing?” he asked.  
“He’s…” Jeremy trailed off. His father stumbled home from the tavern every night, weeping and drunk, barely stopping to greet his son before collapsing on the mattress in the corner. “How do you think?”  
Michael reached up and put his arm around Jeremy. He leaned his head against the his shoulder. “Have you heard from her?” he asked. Jeremy’s face must have betrayed more than he thought, because Michael said, “I’m sorry, dude,” and squeezed his arm. Jeremy shifted closer to Michael.  
Jeremy didn’t wallow, though, and as Michael started talking about the next vintage chess set he was buying for half of what it was worth, or how his sister’s most recent letter had finally arrived from wherever she was studying now, he forgot all about his father.  
They reached the palace gate.  
“See you at lunch?” Michael asked, looking Jeremy square in the eye.  
Michael was a knight now. Jeremy knew he would head to the center courtyard for the morning and spar, while Jeremy would trudge up the tower stairs and document leaves for the rest of the day. When Michael had started on the guard, Jeremy had been afraid that he would change and leave him behind. But to his immense relief, Michael was just as big a dork as he’d always been. He still liked the same old-fashioned music most parents enjoyed and playing the weirdest, most obscure board games he could find. He still baked the best cookies in their half of the kingdom. The only difference from Michael Mell, the Nobleman’s Kid and Sir Michael Mell the Knight was that underneath all his softness, Michael was strong. Sir Michael the Knight could lift Jeremy over his shoulder with the same amount of effort it took Jeremy to lift a toddler.  
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. He would head up to the infirmary tower and check vitals and sort herbs and potions for the rest of the work day. Jeremy had barely changed at all since he began work. He was still Poor Village Jeremy, Invisible Jeremy from the infirmary. “See you then.”  
He and Michael headed their separate ways, and Jeremy resigned himself to another lonely, boring day.

\--

Jeremy was counting down the minutes to his lunch break.  
He started to stack the leaves he was sorting through and put them back in their cubbyhole, then scooped up the reject pile in his hands, listening to the leaves crinkle against his fingers. He reached the trash can and dumped the mess of rotten herbs and moldy plants in, then dusted his hands off on his pants and glanced once again out the window at the sundial in the courtyard.  
Time’s up.  
He spun on his heel and shoved the door open, wincing as it collided with the wall behind it with a resounding bang! and dashed down the stairs.  
The mess hall was always crowded, full of the children of nobles to busy to tutor them in their own homes, or knights and staff on break. Jeremy met Michael at the entrance, and they made their way to the side door of the kitchen.  
Technically, they were supposed to get food from the buffet table at the back of the room, but the line was longer than the room itself, and Michael knew one of the kitchen boys.  
The two boys burst into the kitchen, Michael’s red cloak nearly getting caught in the door. They dodged the cooks and servants with practiced ease, slipping through the empty spaces of the mess of people and pots and pans. The air was dense and warm, heavy with the scent of fine meats and chilled desserts and thick with the apron-clad bodies of kitchen staff.  
They broke through the throng of bodies to find the kitchen boy waiting for them, arms crossed.  
“Look, guys,” he said, “I’m a very busy person.”  
Michael grinned. “I know, Jared. You’re also a person who gets paid.” He held out his hands. “Food.”  
The kitchen boy sighed and shoved his glasses up on his nose. He passed a paper bag to Michael with a resigned, “Get out.”  
“Thanks,” Jeremy said, and the boy snorted, before going back to whatever he’d been doing before.  
As they once again burst through the mass of bodies, Michael opened up the bag.  
“Chicken sandwiches,” he said. “We’re going on three weeks of this, now. This is the twentieth day in a row.”  
“There has to be somebody else we can get food from,” Jeremy said. “That guy is a dick.”  
“He also sells weed behind the bakery,” Michael said. “So we’re just going to put up with him. Or wait in line for half our lunch break and stay sober forever.”  
“Fair point,” Jeremy said.  
“Anyways,” Michael continued, “Dude. You look like ass. What’s up?”  
“Have you ever been in the infirmary for more than five minutes?” Jeremy asked. “It’s awful. Everybody in there is either dying or complaining. And it’s boring.”  
“It’s boring every day,” Michael said. “What’s actually wrong?”  
Jeremy led him over to an empty table at the corner of the room. He glanced around and lowered his voice. “Christine.”  
Michael sat down. “Ah. You do realise she doesn’t even know who you are, right?” he said. “However you fucked up this time, she probably didn’t even notice.”  
Jeremy groaned. “Exactly,” he said. “I’m invisible.”  
Michael grinned and handed Jeremy his sandwich. “If it’s any consolation, Jer,” he said, “So am I.”  
“Not really,” Jeremy said. “You’re a knight. Dudes dig knights.”  
“Not the ones I want to,” Michael said, mouth full. Jeremy snorted. “I think my mother would have a heart attack if I brought home a guy, anyways.” He was silent for a moment as he swallowed. “On the other hand, it would probably get her to look up from her papers for at least five seconds.”  
Jeremy’s household may have been messed up, but Michael’s wasn’t much better. While the Mell family had money and a small manor house, Michael’s parents were more concerned with clawing their way further up the economic pyramid than with either of their children. Their elder daughter and heir was away, studying abroad, so Michael was all alone most nights. But if he wanted to joke about it, Jeremy could go along with it. He would joke about his mother if the mention of her didn’t cause dread, guilt, and self-loathing to settle in the pit of his stomach.  
“Good luck with that,” Jeremy said.  
“I’ll need it.” Michael adjusted his glasses and took another bite of his sandwich. “Hey,” he said, mouth full, “somebody wrote ‘BOYF’ on your bag.”  
“I just washed that,” Jeremy groaned. He grabbed his hand-me-down messenger bag from the bench and rubbed at the ink with his thumb, to no avail. “‘BOYF’. What does that even mean?”  
Michael dropped his own bag on the table in front of Jeremy.  
“‘RIENDS’,” he said. “I’m guessing Rich, this time.”  
“Fucking Goranski.” Jeremy spat on his finger and rubbed his bag harder. Sir Rich Goranski, head of the guard and Jeremy and Michael’s primary tormenter since they had been children. “The dick.”  
They ate in silence for a few more minutes before Michael said, “I read about this scientist who thinks humanity is going to stop evolving.”  
“Mm.” Jeremy set down his sandwich. “Yay?”  
“Evolution is survival of the fittest, right? But at the rate technology is developing, we might not need to be strong to survive in the future!”  
“That’s good?”  
“If only the fittest survived, we’d be dead, Jeremy,” Michael said matter-of-factly.  
Jeremy snorted. “Fair point.”  
“Basically, this is the best time in history to be a loser,” Michael continued. “Own it, man. Why try to be cool when you can be –”  
“Christine,” Jeremy blurted, stiffening in his seat and feeling his face flush. He watched as the short girl sat down at a table at the center of the cafeteria.  
“I mean, sure, I was going to say getting stoned on the beach, but –” Michael saw Christine. “Oh. Christine.”  
Christine Canigula was the lady in waiting to the princess herself. She was small and bouncy and cheerful, and she was absolutely brilliant.  
“What’s wrong with Christine?” Jeremy asked, careful to keep his voice low.  
Michael snorted. “If I recall correctly,” he said, “absolutely nothing. Right?” He put on a high, squeaky voice. “She’s beautiful, right, stunning, and she has these eyes –”  
Jeremy choked on his sandwich. “That’s not what I sound like –”  
“And she performs for nobles and is reigning chess champion for three consecutive years –”  
“Shut up!” Jeremy hissed, leaning across the table and clamping a hand over Michael’s mouth. He glanced at Christine, but she hadn’t heard them. Something slimy pressed against his palm, and he yanked it back with a squeak. “Dude,” he said slowly. “Did you just lick my hand?”  
Michael’s smug, self-satisfied smile spoke for itself.  
Jeremy shoved him. “Dick!”  
Michael shoved him back, laughing. “Come on, you know you love me,” he said. Then he winked and raised his eyebrows. “At least, that’s what you said last night.”  
“Michael, what the fuck.”  
Michael cleared his throat, grinning, and stood up. “Well,” he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder, “Would you look at the time? I gotta blast.”  
“Here, I’ll come with you,” Jeremy said, also getting to his feet.  
They left the cafeteria side by side, Michael complaining about how he had at least three layers of bruises (“Dude, Jenna beats everybody’s ass in sparring, I don’t think she’s been beaten since she was, like, fourteen.”) and that his bag was never going to wash.  
Michael flung the heavy oak door open, and Jeremy blinked in the sudden, blinding sunlight. He held a hand up in front of his face. In front of him, knights and nobles sparred in the dust, bearing their respective family crests, or the red-and-gold of the king’s guard. Armor flashed in the stark, cool sunlight, and the resounding clang! of weapons echoed in Jeremy’s ears. One knight lunged with a spear, and her partner leapt into the air to avoid the blow. A pair yielding whirling nunchucks whirled by, a blur of red, gold and silver. A noble Jeremy recognized to be Lord Jake Dillinger, heir to the largest fiefdom in the kingdom, and Sir Richard Goranski, the resident Head Dick and the head of the guard, spun back and forth, swords flailing. In the center of it all, the King’s champion herself, Lady Jenna Rolan, fended off three attackers at once with easy grace, dual scimitars glinting in the afternoon light.  
Michael groaned. “I’m so ready to get my ass kicked again,” he said, squaring his shoulders and cracking his knuckles. He dropped his bag against the castle wall and unclipped his cloak. It fell to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust, and Jeremy sat down next to it as Michael drew his sword and dove into the fray.  
Jeremy soaked up the sunlight for a few more minutes before standing up and making his way towards the med ward. But before he could exit the courtyard, he was intercepted. By Rich. Jeremy groaned.  
“Hey, loser!” Rich waved, stepping in front of him. He was breathing a little heavily, and the sun glinted off his sweaty face. He gestured to Jeremy’s bag. “I see you got my note! How’s your boyfriend doing, eh?” He nudged Jeremy’s arm.  
Fuck off, Rich, Jeremy snapped, but only in his head. What Jeremy actually said was, “He’s not my boyfriend,” without looking Rich in the eye.  
Rich only snorted and shoved Jeremy to the side. “Whatever you say, loser.” He walked past him, back to the rest of the knights.  
Jeremy rubbed his shoulder and sighed. His feet dragged as he headed up the stairs to the infirmary, dread settling in his stomach as he thought about the four hours of tedious, menial work ahead of him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jeremy finds out some Shit™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello it's me who can't keep up a posting schedule because I'm that person so sorry but here's the thing

Jeremy’s hand stopped above the outhouse doorknob when he heard the voices.  
“Look, kid, I’m not fucking around. You want a promotion? A girlfriend? Talk to the fairy.”  
Fuck, Jeremy said, but not out loud. Rich. He stepped back from the door. Then he realised what Rich was saying. Fairies.  
He remembered every time he’d run down to the beach, searching for four-leaf clovers or rings of flowers and toadstools. He remembered that one evening on the cliff, the glimmer of something at the edge of the woods. He remembered how often he’d drag Michael down to the forest with him, insisting that the fair folk were real, and he’d seen one of them.  
The other kid’s voice was almost comically softer. “Y–you’re probably crazy – I – I mean – Jared told me fairies were bullshit? N–no offense, you – you look crazy, but – s–sorry – I mean –”  
Something thumped against the door, and Jeremy took an involuntary step back, trying to ignore the creeping suspicion that Rich had just slammed his fist against it.  
“Remember me a couple years ago?” Rich asked. Jeremy could hear the sneer in his voice.  
“I – um –” The kid stuttered for a moment, but was cut off.  
“No, you don’t.” Rich growled. Jeremy flinched at the force behind his words. “Nobody noticed silly little Rich.” Rich snorted. “I was a fucking mess, man. Depressed. No social skills. No girlfriend. ”  
There was a short silence, and Jeremy hoped that Rich had gone away. But he heard him say, “And then I met the fairy.”  
The kid squeaked.  
There was that word again. Fairy.  
Did he mean it in a rude way? The way people called Michael ‘fairy’, the way people used to shove him to the side and cough, but they’d really be saying, “what a fucking fairy, fucking creep, that little f–”  
But only some of them would do that. Jeremy tried not to remember.  
He remembered how often he’d wished a fairy, a real fairy, would steal his mother away and take her to Fairyland, like in the stories. He had been fascinated by the fair folk as a child. They would steal children and replace them with their own. They would lure people into rings of flowers to dance until their feet fell off.  
“They grants wishes, kid. I got a wish. Loved and revered captain of the guard!” Rich chuckled. “Meet them at the edge of the woods. Sunset.”  
There was a final thud against the door – probably the kid, Jeremy thought, wincing in sympathy – and then footsteps receded into the distance. Jeremy sat back down on the edge of the toilet seat, mind reeling.  
A wish-granting fairy.  
It was ridiculous – and probably a trick. Jeremy tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. An evil, wish-granting fairy? And one that made a deal with the captain of the king’s guard – if it were true, it would be bad. Monumentally, tremendously bad.  
Fairies were supposed to be evil. They were supposed to torture people, they were supposed to eat virgins and kill crops. What kind of malicious being would use its power to help mankind?  
Jeremy shook his head. It was too bad and too much like the stories to be true.  
Impossible.

The rain was relentless. It had set in halfway through the afternoon, starting so fast that Jeremy had done a double take when he had glanced out the window. And it had only gotten worse in the hour since it had begun. Now, mist curled off the wet cobblestones of the palace courtyard, and muddy puddles obscured most of the pathways. Everything and everyone was soaked through to their bones, and people left wet footprints in their wake as they scrambled inside through every side door and servants’ stairway to take refuge from the unforgiving downpour. Outside, trees bent and swayed, and the castle groaned as it stood steady against the howling wind.  
Jeremy stood in the doorway, grimly watching the storm unfold. Everything he needed to grab was on the far wall of the courtyard, and he was supposed to hurry – “Grab the right roots on time, and we can save at least one life today!”.  
Jeremy glanced outside and felt himself shiver. He hoped that whoever’s life he was saving spent the rest of it well – he figured they would at least owe him that much if he caught pneumonia and died. He took a deep breath, pulled the hood of his sweater up, and made a run for it before he could change his mind.  
Almost immediately, he was soaked. Wet hair fell in his eyes, and his damp clothing clung to his body. His boots filled with water. He gasped as his foot landed in icy water, but pressed on through the deluge.  
As fast as you can, he told himself. It’ll be over soon.  
Ages seemed to pass, but he found himself at the planting box he needed, soaked and frozen and trembling. He started pulling the plants he needed with numb fingers, desperately trying to distract himself from the cold.  
He heard somebody kneel down next to him, but didn’t turn to look. As fast as you can.  
“Gosh, it’s crazy out here, huh?” he heard the person say.  
He nodded, intent on his work. Three more tubers to go, and he could return to the dryness and warmth of the palace.  
Then, he realised who was speaking. Christine. If there had been any warmth or color left in his body, it would have flooded to his face. He fixed his eyes on his tubers and tried to calm his racing heart. He glanced over at her, heart pounding.  
“The princess insists on her special tea –” she made a face “– so she can sleep – sometimes, I wouldn’t mind telling her to get the leaves from the center of the courtyard in the worst storm this year herself! I’m about to catch hypothermia, I swear!” The girl huffed.  
“Y–yeah,” he muttered. “I mean, the med ward needs stuff for – for dying people, so the storm’s kind of, um, inconvenient, you could say –”  
“You’re from the med ward? Cool,” Christine said. Then she finished with the leaves she was gathering and stood up. “I have to get back inside,” she said. “Hey, maybe I’ll see you when I get sick from all this!”  
Jeremy tried to laugh, but it came out as a queak. “Y–yeah, I’ll, uh, see you –”  
“See you around, then!” Christine chirped. And she was gone.  
She thinks you’re a loser, said a voice in Jeremy’s head. Just like everybody else. Why wouldn’t she?  
“Shut up,” Jeremy muttered. He shivered and yanked up the last tuber, then stood up and stumbled back to the castle.

“Dude, you look like an icicle.”  
“Thanks.” Jeremy pressed his face into the towel. “I feel like one, too.”  
“Hurry up, though, because this storm is only getting worse.” Michael leaned back against the doorframe, arms crossed. “And this infirmary smells like dying people.”  
It had been an hour, and Jeremy was still soaked. People had started coming into the med ward almost immediately after the storm began, probably in anticipation of the next day’s inevitable colds and fevers, and he had spent the remainder of his afternoon restocking medicines and herbs.  
“A gust of wind could blow you away,” Michael said, and before Jeremy could protest, he dropped his red cloak over Jeremy’s head. “And today, we’re not going to take the chance that one won’t come along.”  
“You don’t have to –”  
“Dude, look at yourself. You’re soaked.”  
Jeremy looked down at himself. An hour and a half spent with the warmth and dryness of the castle hadn’t proved enough to dry him off.  
He looked at Michael, who had spent most of the afternoon outside, and started to take the cloak off.  
Michael stopped him. “What are you doing?”  
“You’re wet, too –”  
Michael frowned and crossed his arms. “Keep it,” he urged. Jeremy figured there wasn’t any point arguing, so he took it and slung it around his shoulders.  
“Thanks.”  
“Let’s go.”

The walk down to Michael’s parents’ house seemed twice as long in the rain. Every passing cart sent up a wave of muddy water and dirt, and the rain itself seemed only to have intensified since that afternoon.  
Jeremy winced as lightning flashed, and flinched again when the accompanying thunder rumbled out over the sea.  
“I guess storms are only nice from inside the house, huh?” Michael said, attempting to wipe the water from his glasses. “Fuck, I can’t see.”  
“It’s hopeless, dude,” Jeremy said. “Stop trying. The rain is just making it bad again, see?” He tried to wrestle Michael’s glasses away from him, but Michael was stronger.  
“Dude, I can’t without those!” Michael was laughing. He combed the wet hair out of his eyes and poked Jeremy in the stomach. Jeremy shrieked and poked him back.  
“You can’t with them, either! There’s water all over them –” Jeremy shrieked as Michael poked him again, and stumbled backward into a puddle. “Fuck!” But he was laughing. Michael reached down to help him up, grinning.  
“Nice try – ah!” And then Michael was in the mud, too. “You – you pulled me down, dude! Not cool!”  
Jeremy was giggling so hard he couldn’t breathe. He just tilted his head back and laughed and laughed as water cascaded over his face and down the back of his shirt. Michael narrowed his eyes. He cupped his hands and scooped up a glob of mud and hurled it at Jeremy as hard as he could.  
Jeremy squealed, and Michael stared at him.  
“That – that wasn’t me,” Jeremy tried.  
Michael raised his eyebrows and lobbed another handful of muddy water at him. It slammed into Jeremy’s side and splattered over his already-muddy shirt, drenching what hadn’t already been wet.  
“You – I can’t believe you – you –”  
Michael flicked more mud at him, and Jeremy glared at him as it spattered the side of his face.  
“Oh, it’s on,” he said, reaching a filthy hand down into the puddle.

Half an hour later, they stumbled into the house, drenched and caked in mud, leaning on each other and laughing like they were drunk.  
Michael glanced at the trail of mud they left on the floor. He groaned. “I have to clean this up, you know,” he said. “Mom and dad aren’t around to pay the maid.”  
“And whose fault is that?” said Jeremy.  
“Probably the class system.”  
“I meant you shoved me into the puddle first,” Jeremy said.  
Michael chuckled. “Do you want something to eat? Something for your dad?” He led Jeremy to the kitchen and started going through the pantry. “Nobody will notice if any of this is missing.”  
“We’re good,” Jeremy said. He thought about how his father drank himself to hysterics every night. He doesn’t need the food.  
A voice in the back of his mind said, Or deserve it.  
Shut up, Jeremy told his head.  
“You should eat something, at least,” Michael said, as if reading his thoughts. He tossed a loaf of bread over the counter. “Here.”  
Jeremy caught it. It was cold, but it would still be amazing. Michael could really cook. “Thanks.”  
“Does this mean you forgive me for beating your ass in the mud?” Michael asked wryly.  
“No. And I beat you. Jerk.”  
Michael stuck his bottom lip out and made puppy eyes. “But I thought I was your favwite pewson.”  
Jeremy snorted. “Don’t push it.” 

The rain kept up though the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Petrichor, the feeling of the first rain after a dry spell
> 
> fuck who knows if that's metaphorical or hopelessly cheesy, i don't fucking know


End file.
